


"Can you stay?" (Day 8)

by demiclar



Series: Fictober 2019 [6]
Category: Destiny (Video Games)
Genre: Angst, Angst and Feels, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, I know it's not fictober anymore, Ikora and Zavala being sad, My poor bbs, Not really romantic but it could be?, Post-Cayde-6 Death, Sad, Takes place during Forsaken, just let me do this, the light communicating emotions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-28
Updated: 2020-03-28
Packaged: 2021-03-01 00:08:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,507
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23365948
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/demiclar/pseuds/demiclar
Summary: Ikora and Zavala aren't sure how to handle losing Cayde, but at the end of the day, they still have each other.(I know it's not fictober anymore, whatever)
Relationships: Cayde-6 & Ikora Rey & Zavala
Series: Fictober 2019 [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1510793
Comments: 3
Kudos: 16





	"Can you stay?" (Day 8)

Ikora knows she’s mad at Zavala, but at the end of the day, that’s about all she really knows, and even it is… difficult. Somewhere deep inside her, she thinks she knows Cayde is…. Even to think the word in her brain is too much. It’s all too much to take in.

Dead. Gone. Lost

It’s not like when Ghaul attacked them, either. When they lost their light but not their will, their powers but not their strength. Cayde is gone forever. His light is gone and so is he. Never to return. It’s not like when Ghaul attacked. The Guardian won’t reunite them again. Her fireteam will never join back together for one final gamble, one final mission where they’d risk life and limb for the sake of their city.

Cayde didn’t even die for the sake of the city. She knows he’d been trying to get away, trying to get out of the tower, to run from his duties enough to stay sane. She knows he and Petra Venji had been corresponding, working together to take the Scorn Barons off the Tangled Shore. To make a lawless wasteland safer. She knows he’d gathered a team to execute that very mission recently, and that his death was nothing more than revenge for his actions, for killing their leader, Fikrul.

But for him to have been killed by Uldren Sov? She wants answers. She needs them. She doesn’t want to sleep until she has them. She wants to go to the shore and put a bullet in the Prince’s head. But she can’t. Zavala forbid Guardian’s from going to the shore. She knows some will go anyway, that the Guardian and many others won’t sleep until Cayde’s death has been avenged, but she can’t. She won’t be there to help them, even for one of her closest friends. She can’t fight for him. The thought tears her up inside more than any other. 

After the Guardian brought Cayde’s body back from the Reef, she’d argued with Zavala until she was in tears, then spent the rest of her day in a daze. She knew she had work to do, she always did, but Cayde’s death brings on a multitude of new burdens, apart from the grief she was at the same time having trouble feeling, and having trouble suppressing. The Hunters will need a new Vanguard, and someone will have to take over communicating with the scouts before they can find a replacement. And the Guardian…she knows Cayde lived his life with debts hanging over his head. Would the Guardian pay them? Would she? Or would they be thrust onto whomever the next Hunter Vanguard was?

Cayde had reminded her and Zavala of the conditions of his dare in the last message he’d sent them. As if he’d known things would go wrong. But it hadn’t been a Hunter who’d killed Cayde. Who would it fall to then? The Guardian that killed Uldren Sov? Or someone of their choosing? Marcus Ren? Shiro-4? Shin Malphur?

She doesn’t know. She has no idea, and she doesn’t care to figure it out. She can get along with whoever eventually replaces Cayde, she knows, but no one will ever replace Cayde. No one could ever live up to him. Should they even find a replacement? The suggestion had already been made that the city might be better without the Vanguard, that it didn’t need them anymore. She and Zavala had already discussed the notion before, but they’d never actually made plans for it. Traveler knew it would take a weight off their shoulders. If Zavala weren’t a guardian, he would have been dead a thousand times over with all the stress from the Vanguard on his back. She likely wouldn’t have been far behind him, either.

She misses their usual daily debrief. She doesn’t know if Ophiuchus sent a message to Zavala informing him of her absence, but she doesn’t particularly care either way. Instead, she finds her way back to their shared quarters. She tries not to think of Cayde as she lets herself in, tries not to remember the times he’s let himself in through the very door late at night with drunken flourish. Never again would he drag them out to the city to accompany him. Never again would he tease Zavala about his poker tell, or complain in earnest when Zavala beat him at chess. Never again would he drag her from her books when she worked too hard. Never again would she have to nag him to finish his daily reports.

Her bed is cold when she finally crawls into it. She hadn’t eaten. She couldn’t have been bothered to. Ophiuchus gave up asking her after two attempts. She doesn’t doubt he’s feeling a similar grief for Cayde, and for his Ghost, Sundance. Ikora had always liked her, she knows Ophiuchus had, too. A physical pain sparks in her chest as she blocks out the mental image of Cayde, knocking on her door when she’s upset, only to let himself in before she can respond. She knows he would have climbed straight into her bed without inquiry or invitation, and if she were already there, he would’ve pulled her into his arms the way he always did.

At first, she’s too shocked to cry, but when she does, she fears she will never stop.  
She doesn’t hear Zavala knock when he finally enters the room, but she knows without a doubt that he did. She’s not sure how long it’s been, but her head aches enough to tell her it’s been a while, and Zavala wouldn’t have left his post until he knew everything had been taken care of. Perhaps it makes her selfish, but she doesn’t care. He’s here, and that’s what matters. 

She doesn’t hear him knock, but she knows he did, and she knows he stayed in the hall for a long while, waiting for a response that was never going to come. She senses more than sees him approach, his light entering his room the same way he does, quietly, slowly. Even his broad stature seems to be reduced. He seems half his usual size, exhaustion and grief weighing heavy on his shoulders. The brave, strong commander he usually appears as is gone, and she sees only a friend, whose grief and pain matches her own.

It’s clear he doesn’t miss the way her light latches onto his, and he holds her broken gaze as he shuts the door behind him with a quiet click. Even in his armor, his footfalls are soft as he crosses the room, and after a painful moment, he’s seated on the edge of her bed.

She’s not sure who reaches for who, but an instant later, she’s in his arms, her face tucked against his neck, resting on his armored shoulder. She’s not sure when she starts crying again, or if she’d ever really stopped, but his arms are around her and he’s holding her to him, murmuring in her ear and reminding her to breathe. She feels like a child when his arms loosen just slightly and she panics, grabbing onto his armor like a lifeline.

“Can you stay?” She asks him, her voice hardly more than a broken whisper.

She’s almost surprised at the relief she feels when he nods, humming in affirmation. She can feel it rumbling through her as he tucks her back into his arms once more. His Ghost transmits his armor away, and soon her head is pillowed against his red undersuit, his hands soft as one runs along her back. She pulls him into the bed with her, and he doesn’t object, following her under the blankets and wrapping her in his embrace. He holds her all through the night, until she finally falls asleep in his arms, his body wrapped around hers as if he could shield her from any further hurt.

The Vanguard quarters are silent when Zavala enters them. It doesn’t feel like Cayde is dead. To the commander, he could have just been out on another mission, or spending the night in the city, drinking or eating ramen with his friends until he finally stumbles back home to their quarters late into the night.

His footfalls are loud in the entryway as he moves through it, and for a moment he wonders if Ikora has even returned to their quarters. He senses her an instant later. 

Her light is cast over the whole apartment, a roiling storm of grief and pain, unaware of everything but itself. In a way, he wishes he could feel as she does. He envies her pain, because even as it washes over him and every part of him wishes to help her, at least she’s feeling something. He doesn’t feel the grief he should. He knows sometimes it takes time but… he feels devoid of it all. The initial shock was there, of course. When the Guardian brought back the Hunter’s body, it pained him to see it. It hurt him to see Cayde that way. But he no longer feels that pain. He feels nothing.

He wishes he did. Leaders are supposed to have emotion, empathy. It’s what makes people respect them, their strength to carry on in spite of it all. They’re supposed to preserve their followers because they want to, not because it is strategically right for them to do. It builds trust, understanding.

And Ikora…he wishes he could feel what she does, that he could have understood her pain when she argued with him until there were tears in her eyes and light at her fingertips. She’d left her station at the end of the day. Her ghost had attended their daily debrief in her stead. Zavala knew why, he knew she was at her breaking point, but he didn’t feel the same.

When he’d retired from his own post at the end of the day, he’d gone to the war room. There, he’d worked alone, for hours and hours, processing threats, handing off strikes, managing scouts at the Tangled Shore and beyond. He was there until 2AM, when Sloane arrived at the Tower. He hadn’t requested her. Perhaps he should have, even in a time of relative peace, it was taxing to have his Deputy so far away. Still, he hadn’t called for her, but she’d come all the same. Amanda Holiday could handle Titan on her own, they both knew.

It took the Deputy another hour to convince him to leave the war room. Ikora’s hidden had arrived not long after her, splitting the Vanguard’s duties among themselves while Sloane managed the rest. On his way out, one of them had asked him to take care of Ikora, and told him to get some rest. He’d only nodded in response. He still didn’t feel the grief they were expecting.

He stops by the morgue on his way to his quarters. The doctors still on duty in the late hour let him pass without question, and he finds Cayde’s body neatly arranged and cleaned. Any attempt for repair or restoration was abandoned hours ago, and the Exo’s body has since been drained of fluids and covered with a white cloth. His tattered armor rests on a table nearby. Zavala takes the stack, hardly caring about the Hunter’s missing cloak.

When he enters the quarters, the armor is gone from his hands. His ghost transmatted it to his rooms before he left the hospital. Once inside, he finds himself moving towards Ikora’s rooms on instinct. He makes it to the hallway outside her door before he hears her sobbing. The sound stuns him, just a bit. 

He knocks on her door gently, just loud enough to be heard, and isn’t surprised when she doesn’t respond. Likely, she’s still mad at him. She has every reason to be, but even if he cannot feel his grief for Cayde, it hurts him to know the pain Ikora is in. He can’t bring himself to leave her alone, and after a long while, he pushes the door open and steps into the room.

Her head lifts as soon as she sees him, as soon as she feels his light, tentatively reaching for hers, asking if she would let him help her. She does. 

Her light latches onto his so intensely it’s overwhelming, as if it were hooking claws into his very soul, tearing into his flesh, but he doesn’t feel anger in it, he only feels pain. Pain echoed in his chest as her grief hits him and threatens to bring him to his knees. It’s like a dam has burst within him, as his light echoes her pain. Cayde, it seems to echo, Cayde is gone. 

His chest is tight as he crosses the room towards her, his breathing entirely unsteady as he makes it to the edge of her bed and sits down upon it. In an instant, she’s in his arms, and he’s holding her close as she presses her face against his neck, against his tattoo as her tears drop around his collar. Her sobs seem to only grow worse as he holds her, and he murmurs in her ear as her breaths grow ragged. He reminds her to breathe as he holds her close, her body trembling against his. 

Slowly, her breathing begins to calm, and her sobs begin to slow. Tensions seems to ebb out of him as a flicker of relief finds purchase within him. He moves to adjust him arms around her, slackening his grip, only for her to grab him in a panic. 

“Can you stay?” She asks him, her voice a broken whisper that leaves him unable to speak.

Instead, he nods, humming in response as he pulls her back into his arms again. He feels her relax against him, even if its only a little. He reaches inward, brushing the bond between him and his ghost, and his heart clenches when he finds it wreathed in grief, just as the light around him is. Still, his ghost understands his wordless request, and his armor transmatts away until he’s left in his red undersuit.

Once his armor is gone, Ikora pulls him into the bed with her, and he follows her under the blankets. He kisses her forehead as he lowers her down onto the bed, releasing her for a moment so he can discard his shirt and socks, the thick material of his undersuit just as relieving to escape as his armor. Ikora is already reaching for him by the time they’re gone, and his chest aches to see her—confident, self-assured Ikora—reaching for him with desperation in her eyes. 

He quickly returns to her, wrapping himself around her like the shield he’s worked so hard to become. The walls he’s worked so hard to build are crashing down around him, and he only wishes he could protect her from the pain and hurt roiling through her. He wishes he could have protected Cayde, too.

**Author's Note:**

> I just got the destiny comic collection, and after reading Cayde's Six I thought I'd revamp and actually post a little thing I wrote for fictober months ago. I might still do these fictober prompts just because, especially since I now have quite a bit more time to do stuff. Anyway I hope you liked my angst. I still miss him.
> 
> Also! Just a tip to people that want to try out different tenses with their writing, pick the tense you want the story to be in BEFORE you start writing because it is an absolute pain in the butt to try to change it and usually it doesn't work out the way you want it to.


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